Field
Methods and apparatuses consistent with exemplary embodiments relate to a method and apparatus for generating a environmental profile based on sensing of an environment using a recording device such as a point cloud camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
The following background discussion includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
Most of the conventional recommendation systems rely on a user's digital life to identify user's choice and to generate profile. Based on the profile thus generated, it is possible to present appropriate recommendations to the user. Some of the prior art documents describing the aforesaid principle are U.S. Publication No. 20120232977 and U.S. Publication No. 20120233003.
U.S. Publication No. 20120232977 describes identifying user's financial behavior & user's favorites and assisting the user based on that. The financial behavior data may be determined based on credit, debit, and other demand deposit account purchases/transactions. It also does a real-time video stream analysis to find objects from a video and assists the user by selecting/recommending products and businesses.
U.S. Publication No. 20120233003 describes assisting the user while making purchases via mobile devices for e-commerce activities by doing a real-time video analysis of the products/items.
In addition to generating profile based on a user's digital life, it is possible to create profile based on a real life environment and more particularly based on objects and activities sensed in the environment. Apart from generation of recommendations, the profile thus generated can be beneficially used for generation of alerts, for example in a home automation system, a security system, etc. In order to generate such profile, reliance may have to be placed on various electronic devices, including for example, image capturing devices, sound capturing devices, etc. Some of the documents describing generation of profile based on sensing of an environment are U.S. Pat. No. 8,081,158, U.S. Publication No. 20080167913, U.S. Publication No. 20040037469, U.S. Publication No. 20030088832 and U.S. Pat. No. 8,068,879.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,081,158 describes using camera to capture image and based on the image characteristics delivering screen content. The idea primarily identifies users' Age & Gender and accordingly delivers screen content (e.g. Advertisements, programs etc.)
U.S. Publication No. 20080167913 describes detecting a physical object within the specified proximity of a component of a computer system, wherein a computer system submits an accessed-object-identifier for the physical object to a content portal. The invention facilitates delivering content (e.g., advertisements, games, multi-media clips, etc.) based on the object's physical characteristics. The object can be anything (e.g., a bottle, a glass, a finger, a hat, etc.) and should be within a specified proximity of a component of table top computer system. The idea is to identify the product (or its category) and present related content for display on the table top computer system.
U.S. Publication No. 20040037469 describes using sensor devices for object detection and then controls a display device based on the detected object. This invention relates to a device for the object-oriented control of information display devices (e.g. advertising carriers). The objects in question are primarily humans, but may also be other objects such as vehicles.
U.S. Publication No. 20030088832 describes system and method for the display of advertising information is provided, wherein the system is able to sense the presence and obtain characteristics of individuals in the immediate environment of the display. This idea identifies user's characteristics (like user's movement, gender, age, and race) and uses this information to present material on the display unit.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,068,879 describes sensors on a personal communication device monitoring the environment around the device. Based on an analysis of that monitoring, an appropriate visual message is shown on an outside display screen of the device. The visual message is targeted towards those around the device rather than to the device's user.
It can be observed from the above documents that image capturing devices and analysis of the captured image play a pivotal role in this domain. The aforesaid documents primarily use an image capturing devices such as RGB cameras for object detection/identification and hence, are not in a position to determine depth parameters. It would be appreciated however, that generation of a profile which includes depth parameters (or in other words based on shape of the object present in the environment) provides a better quality profile. While, such limitation can be countered during processing, the same leads to cost inefficiency, owing to requirement of exorbitant image processing techniques, thereby rendering a profile generation system non-efficient.
In addition to the above, it has been found that when low resolution images obtained from RGB cameras are processed for profile generation, the quality of the profile generated is not satisfactory. While, such limitation can be countered by using high resolution cameras, the same leads to cost inefficiency.
Even if a profile generation system uses capturing device that are specifically designed to capture high resolution images, issues relating to level of illumination of the environment play a spoil sport in attaining the desired results as the capturing device require a pre-determined illumination or sufficiently enlightened environment to detect any object or living or any movement occurring in the environment.
Thus, there remains a need to provide improved methods and systems for generation of profile for an environment based on sensing of objects in the environment, changes occurring in the environment, activities occurring in the environment and interactions occurring in the environment.